Recently I wrote about the films of Wolfgang Staudte who made political films in the 50's, when most Germans preferred to forget about politics. "Unter den Brucken" is made by Helmut Käutner at the end of World War II. He made an a-political movie when the pressure to make a propaganda movie must have been enormous.
"Unter den Brucken" is a film about two men (Hendrik played by Carl Raddatz and Willy played by Gustav Knuth) and their old barge. They both have sometimes girlfriends but are longing for a stable relationship. One night they see a sad girl on a bridge (Anna played by Hannelore Schroth) and fear that she might commit suicide. They convince her to come onboard and when they both fall in love with her the story really gets going.
A story about men working in inland shipping and their complications with women sounds like "L'atalante" (1934, Jean Vigo) and that's true. However "L'atalante" is an all time classic and "Unter den Brucken" an almost forgotten film. That's not right, because "Unter den brucken" is in my opinion not the lesser one of these two films. It has a good story (right mix of romance and comedy) good actors and beautiful images.
There are beautful images of river landsscapes but also of the barge entering Berlin. The last mentioned images reminded me of Harry and Monica leaving Stockhom in "Summer with Monica" (1953, Ingmar Bergmen). By the way, given that the shooting took place in the final stages of World War II, it is a miracle that there is no war damage visible in the Berlin scenes.
The best thing of the film is the camerawork in the scenes between Hendrik and Anna. There are several of them.
- Anna cannot sleep because of the unusual sounds on the barge. Hendrik explains them one by one.
- Anna taking care of a small wound on the hand of Hendrik. Meanwhile they keep looking at each other.
- Hendrik leaving the appartment of Anna in Berlin. Anna looks out of the window and her shadow is projected on the walls of the building block on the other side of the street.
- Anna running up the stairs (only her legs are visible) when Hendrik is back from Rotterdam.
